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Encourage Learning: Summers, Weekends, and After School

Times when your child is out of school, like weekends, holiday breaks, and summer vacations, don’t need to be times spent away from learning. Researchers are finding that too long of a break (particularly during the summer) can be detrimental to kids’ academic achievement. Encouraging your kids to participate in learning activities during their free time is an effective way to support academic success. Kids don’t have to study textbooks to learn; read on to find out more about how your kids can learn when they’re outside of school.  

Did You Know?

  • Good summer programs can help kids improve their reading, develop math skills, increase high school graduation rates, make kids more likely to stay in college, and increase their college employment rate.1
  • Between kindergarten and sixth grade, the decrease in summer reading causes a gap between low-income and middle-income students of up to 18 months.5 By the end of middle school, the cumulative loss has expanded to two or more years.6
  • 80% of the achievement differences between low-income and middle- to high-income students may occur because of summer reading loss.7
    • So, what can you do? No matter what your income level, encourage your kids to keep reading, and to keep learning during out of school times.
  • Simple tips for encouraging kids to read >
  • Easy ideas for finding effective summer programs >  
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    1. Mary Terzian, Kristin Anderson Moore, and Kathleen Hamilton, Effective and Promising Summer Learning Programs and Approaches for Economically-Disadvantaged Children and Youth: A White Paper for the Wallace Foundation, (Washington, DC: Child Trends, July 10, 2009).

    2. Richard Anderson, Paul Wilson, and Linda Fielding, “Growth in Reading and How Children Spend Their Time Outside of School,” Reading Research Quarterly 23 (1988): 285-303.

    3. Anne McGill-Franzen and Richard Allington, “Lost Summer for Some Children, Few Books and Few Opportunities to Read,” Classroom Leadership 4, no. 9 (August 2001).

    4. Richard Allington and Anne McGill-Franzen, “The Impact of Summer Loss on the Reading Achievement Gap,” Phi Delta Kappan 85, no. 1 (2003): 68-75.

    5. Ibid.

    6. Ibid.

    7. Donald Hayes and Judith Grether, “The School Year and Vacations: When Do Students Learn?” Cornell Journal of Social Relations 17 (1983): 56-71.

     

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